The Great Push After the Rains

September 26, 2025 Friday. Jimmy and I spent a little time counting from our deck since it was a surefire day Friday. After 2 days of rain, and listening to a local Red-shouldered Hawk scream at every passing bird all day, I knew I had to eek out some time yard watching for Hawks. Not officially numbers for the Soddy Count, because this is Hixson after all, it was still fun, and a great indicator to us that Bill was having a great day. Jimmy has scarring on his eye from the shingles, so the light hurts, and he was unable to look for long periods of time. But he did get on several hawks. Our count was from 3:30 to 4:30 and our results were: 3:30 to 4 - 1 RS, 1 BW,low; 4:00 - 57 BW, 1 BE, 1 RS, 1 CH, and 5 BV. All migrated on except the RS and the BVs, of course. 4- 4:15 2 BV, 6 BW and hundreds of dragon flies and damselflies etc. Never saw so many at once. There were more than a dozen butterflies, most were Monarcs.Jimmy then saw from 4:15 to 4:30 - 2 BE (3rd yr), 8 BW and Vultures popping in and out. Last of the day was a TV. It was fun while it lasted but I had supper to fix. I ran out a few times to scan while things cooked, but the TV was the last bird passing in sky where we could see them. Winds had changed too, and were quite brisk out of the NE. Fun...BUT not as fun as BILL's whole day!!!! Here's his report. With his NH we are actually up to 8 species now. He had 7 for the day, but we also have American Kestral, which he did not get one of yesterday. The variety was insane yesterday. That makes the day fun:

Added A Kestral

Sept 25, 25 - Thursday. We have resolved the Sharpies count, so here is the great count day for the week so far:

First Nice Numbers of BW's

Sept 25, 25, Thursday. We are not posting the report just yet, until Bill gets a chance to take a look and clarify the Sharpies count. But I am going to post about it, because it is a great example of how we do double cks through out the count season, so that we can offer the numbers that can be compared at the end of the season and feel good about it. Bill is primarily the counter these days. So what he reports is what we put up as the count. (This may include numbers from other trusted counters.) But a typo, or a missed transfer from his handwritten records, to an email could make the end count be different. Even in the end, he has sometimes put up his totals from his book, page totals as his count. But as for the reported count, official to the Hawk Migration Association, it will match his emails. Jimmy is able to go back and alter if Bill can ID the difference of one or 2 birds over a season, but it's much too difficult to do. So we try to catch errors day by day. Today, the body of the hourlies say one thing for Sharpies and the Total line says another number. So before entering that into all these posts and Hawkcount.org, we will ask Bill what numbers he wishes to report. If we just make a correction, it might be wrong, and in this case, if he missed the sharpie in the hourlies, it definitely would be. Each month, I compare my running numbers to the hawkcount numbers to make sure Jimmy and I are on the same page. Only once have I found him wrong in all these years. But I have researched my numbers several times and corrected. Keeping a running total up to date is a little more difficult, especiallydoing it by hand in a journal. Hawkcount is in Excel. I don't use Excel, since I would never find my errors because I am not fluent in Excel. The running count is not as important daily on the blog, but needs to match up for me several times a month to keep our yearlies correct. It is easy to verify against Hawkcount's Excel running totals. More BWs were seen yesterday against the clouds and today's weather looks like there might be nice conditions too. Hoping Bill has a great day. Keep Looking UP!!!

The Rain Has Squelched 2 Counts in a Row.

Sept 24, 25 Does that mean there's some wet hawks waiting to fly this morning, a day later? We'll see if they fly over the watch. LOL PS. Count numbers verified equal to Hawkcount.org numbers, Jimmy has entered. Here's Bill's Short Report:

When the Rain Stopped...

Sept 23 25 3 Plus hours of sunny skies:

Adding a Merlin to the Count!

Bill had a nice count day, but a rainy one. Today's rain will possible have the watch socked in all day. Jimmy and I have had some Hawks passing in the evening low over the house going NE to SW. But they were likely looking for landing spots in our local trees for the night. If it weren't raining, I might have looked for a liftoff this morning. We felt we had 2 dark BW's back to back really low. But here is Bill's count.

Tami Is So Appreciated

Tami covers on Sunday mornings. We appreciate you so much! Putting up the first kettle of much size. Yay! Here are their Sunday numbers: